


Repercussions

by TheCrazyFriend



Series: Out of Time [6]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-09
Updated: 2020-02-09
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:53:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22630555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheCrazyFriend/pseuds/TheCrazyFriend
Summary: The Out of Time story continues!!Sorry it's been so long, I couldn't work out how to adapt S3 canon!
Relationships: Dustin Henderson/Suzie, Eleven | Jane Hopper/Maxine "Max" Mayfield, Jonathan Byers/Nancy Wheeler, Joyce Byers/Jim "Chief" Hopper, Will Byers/Mike Wheeler
Series: Out of Time [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1162205
Comments: 16
Kudos: 6





	Repercussions

**Author's Note:**

> The Out of Time story continues!!
> 
> Sorry it's been so long, I couldn't work out how to adapt S3 canon!

** Saturday 8th September 1990 **

“Yeah, that's right. We’re looking for her, she's someone who can help us”  
“Well she hasn’t lived here for three weeks, Ms. Gazelle” the elderly landlady who owned the small apartment that the woman the bleached blonde had been chasing provided with a sad smile  
“Ugh” The bleached blonde grumbled to herself, she had set out from her father's house in Alaska, crossed the border into Canada and headed to Vancouver to find one of the former Hawkins experiments. It had taken her months to track down the female in question since she had been incredibly difficult to track down, the woman in question seemed to relocate whenever the bleached blonde had gotten close to finding her. “Do you have any idea where she might have gone?”  
“Sorry, Francine was always quite the mystery, she came and went as she pleased, always polite but very private.”  
“Can you tell me a bit about her? Mrs. Sinead” the elderly landlady lived in a small Canadian town but was turning out to be another dead end.  
“Shoulder length red hair, had a small tattoo on her left wrist. Six I believe” the woman furrowed her brow in concentration at trying to remember. The landlady’s memory wasn't the best and she hadn't seen the occupant very often, in fact, had only really properly had a conversation with her when she was applying to live in the tiny apartment  
“Oh, shit” the bleached blonde grumbled. She felt bad for the poor woman she was pursuing, _how many lives has Brenner ruined?_  
“Does that mean something?”  
“Uh, yea... But I don't wanna talk about it” Max sighed, shaking her head and turning away. At the last second, she murmured a thank you to the woman who had been the woman's landlord before she just upped and left, once again. Max had been chasing the ghost of the former lab experiment across what felt like the length and breadth of the northern states and southern Canada for almost five months. Every time she thought she had gotten close to the woman, she seemed to vanish anything up to a few weeks beforehand. “Fuck!!” she spat in frustration, hitting the steering wheel of her truck a few times in annoyance that the former experiment had, once again, evaded her. “I guess I gotta head home” she acknowledged reluctantly. Max hadn't been home to Alaska in almost four months, her tireless search for the former experiment taking up most of her time and since it was several thousand miles and days of travel from Hawkins all the way to her home in Alaska she had agreed with Hopper that she'd find employment in the nearby city of Anderson while searching the lab for evidence about the test subjects and following up on leads for the several test subjects they were aware of. The brunette she was chasing down was her latest lead, the latest subject she became aware of, she had agreed to avoid the 'Uniform Girl' since she had the air of someone who was incredibly dangerous, Hopper didn't want her trying to find her on her own and had been hunting for the blonde that they saw in the photograph. Upon the recommendation of Kali, whom Max had met up with in secret away from her gang to protect their identity and location, she started pursuing the redhead as well. Axel had led the rest of the gang on a supply run while Kali stayed behind at their hideout to plan their next move regarding one of the former government figures who had originally approved the Hawkins Lab’s activities with regards to the test subjects. The man had retired from the government a few years beforehand but, after a fair amount of research, Kali had discovered his name and had chosen him as a priority target. Max had met with her, discussing Jane's condition at length, Kali explaining how Jane's mother, Terry, had become trapped in her dream circle and Max describing how she and Hopper had come to the conclusion that maybe one of the subjects could help Jane. Kali, intrigued, suggested that Max attempt to find the redheaded Six, a girl with precognition.

“Hey” Max had retreated back to her rented one-bedroom apartment in another small Canadian town and had jumped at the unfamiliar voice, her hand immediately shooting down toward her belt where her gun was concealed. “Please don't shoot me” the voice continued, almost nervously  
“Uh” Max took a few seconds to realize but her mouth fell open, it was the girl she had been chasing the past few months. “ _S-Six_?” she asked quietly  
“I prefer Francine. I understand you're liking for someone who might be able to reverse some kind of damage to Eleven's mind?” Max nodded, “then there’s only one person who can help you.” Francine took out a photograph and circled the blonde girl, “She's the only one who can help you.”  
“What's her name?” Max asked quietly

** Tuesday 24th May 1988 **

“Good morning, Max” Hopper knocked on the door of the motel room that his daughters had slept in that night  
“M-morning” Max had been up late watching her girlfriend sleep so was absolutely exhausted and barely functional  
“Coffee?” he asked and the blonde merely nodded. “How did you sleep”  
“I didn't, not really” Hopper had handed the blonde her coffee, Max had been on edge the entire night, grasping the gun that she had insisted upon taking to bed with her because she half expected some of Brenner's men to smash down the door to attempt to kidnap Jane once more, that and watching her girlfriend sleep. “Thanks, dad” she smiled at him  
“We probably should get moving ASAP” he warned. “And you ought to get Jane dressed ready to go, I don't know if it's wise to leave her in pajamas”

Max had just finished pulling on Jane's clothes when a news report came up on the TV. “Dad!” she screamed  
On the TV there were two pictures, she found herself looking at pictures of herself and Hopper. “The people responsible for kidnapping the Jane Doe that had been found at the Hawkins National Laboratory. If you have seen these individuals or know anything about their identities please call the police”  
“Fuck!” Hopper stared at the TV. “We gotta change our appearances, again.” The man grumbled, scratching several deep scars on his slightly misaligned wrist from the events of 1985, events that felt like a lifetime ago. “Let's get out of Indiana then we can change our appearances. Can you grab El?”  
Max nodded and wrapped her arms around her girlfriend to carry her out to their vehicle. “What about the bed?”  
“Fuck it” he replied anxiously. Since the incident with Brenner, he had been more open with his feelings as he nearly missed his chance several times. “Let's get the hell outta here, Max.” Max nodded and kissed her girlfriend, gently scooping her up into her arms to carry her out to their car. Max couldn't help but feel as if dread hung over the three of them

** Sunday, 10th April 1988 **

“Soooo” Dustin looked between Steve and Robin, “how's the couple life treating you?” It was still early, nine in the morning and yet three members of the Party were wide awake and sitting downstairs on Steve's comfy couches with a coffee each despite not having gotten to bed until very late  
“You uh...” Steve began, “you do realize we’re not actually together, right?”  
“Whaaaaaat?!”  
“Uh yeah. We're not actually in a relationship, we just let people think we are”  
“Uh...”  
“Dusty, we’re trusting you with this knowledge” Robin insisted.  
“I didn't expect that”  
“Neither did the dingus” Robin grinned at Steve, remembering how she had come out sat on the floor of a bathroom in the short-lived Starcourt mall while high on truth serum. “He didn't even get a 'you suck' point for that since I'm a lesbian”  
“That's cool... My second lesbian friend” Dustin smiled. “Since El was bisexual, and third homosexual friend” the curly-haired young man smiled at Steve  
_Of course Dustin and the Party are okay with it, they were okay with Max and El!_ Steve could almost hit himself out of exasperation. “I'm sorry we didn't trust y'all. Robin’s parents would have killed her if they ever found out” Robin's parents were far less tolerant of 'deviant behavior' than the party but were nowhere near the extreme of Neil Hargrove, having said that, Steve didn't trust them not to react badly in anger  
“I understand” Dustin replied, he had, of course, seen that gays were targeted by bigots and discriminated against at a very minimum and sometimes were even assaulted for their preferences. Dustin shared his best older friend’s opinion that lesbians and gays were fine but he knew that most people disagreed. “but you guys should tell the Party...” Steve and Robin shared a glance, acknowledging the boy’s suggestion and, as they always did, gave it the attention it deserved instead of rejecting it since it had come from a child.  
“We will consider that” Robin acknowledged  
“You mean you will” Steve interjected. “I don't have any right to voice an opinion on this since I'm not the one who's coming out”  
“I value your input, Dingus”  
“Huh” Dustin grumbled quietly  
“What, Dustin?” Steve turned to raise a curious eyebrow at his younger brother  
“I would've thought you would’ve found a better name for our babysitter than _Dingus_ ”  
“Yea well” Steve shook his head, amused. Robin had just openly declared herself a lesbian and all Dustin could whinge about was how 'Dingus' wasn't really a suitable nickname for _their_ babysitter.  
“I bet Dingus secretly agrees with me,” Dustin began, from his shit-eating grin he was clearly teasing Steve, all while managing to retain a sense of respect over the subject matter, “you should tell the rest of the Party that you're lesbian, Robin. I mean what could possibly happen other than you being treated with the respect you deserve? Mike and Will were going to get together, El and Max were together and our own Mr. Harrington here occasionally made love heart eyes toward the town w-hormone.”  
“Billy?!” Robin replied in shock  
“The one and only. I heard from a reliable source that the scars actually suit him” Dustin replied with a teasing wink at Steve.

Billy had been caught up in the Mind Flayer's plot but, luckily for him, he had merely been possessed instead of the full-on Flaying, the Mind Flayer had required a temporary puppet to gather the supplies it needed to start flaying people. Animals were that much easier for it to control and they would more willingly eat the poisons that would convert them into the Flayed but humans weren't so gullible, the Mind Flayer had required a proxy to go out and capture the first human who could then go out and subsequently kidnap more people to turn to its side. The honor of being the first of the Flayed had gone to Billy's father, Neil, helped along by the man’s anger and aggression. Billy had been able to resist the Mind Flayer’s influence when it had ordered him to keep Eleven still so it could kill her because he wasn't fully Flayed as Neil had been. The telekinetic girl had been temporarily weakened by the Mind Flayer's poison and she was powerless to escape the evil creature until Billy had broken free thanks to Eleven’s interference and taken a stand. Billy had ended up scuffling with his father Neil until the Mind Flayer put one of its foul tendrils through his abdomen. Billy had then been targeted with a few fireworks, the explosions of several thousand degrees Fahrenheit were more than enough to trigger an exorcism of the Mind Flayer’s essence that had been infecting Billy's body, freeing him just in time for Joyce to close the gate. Neil hadn't been so lucky, he had dissolved into a lump of flesh along with the Mind Flayer's ugly-as-hell proxy the moment the Hawkins key was destroyed in a sparkling ball of fire. Deep under Hawkins, Hopper had also evaded instant death by leaping down into the chasm and had hidden by the time the Russians had flooded the room looking for survivors. It hadn’t been until the police chief heard Owens then he revealed his presence by clambering awkwardly up the ladder that had been built into the sheer cliff using only one hand since the other had been broken by the fall. His reappearance had led to a tearful reunion between father and daughter. Jane had thought her father, Hopper had died and was so happy to see him again that she didn't let go of him for the rest of the evening except to comfort Max after her stepbrother was carted off to the hospital. Sadly, Billy and Max's relationship had remained antagonistic up until Max's disappearance in 1986 at which point Billy was long gone from the Hargrove-Mayfield household though he still lived in Hawkins. He hadn’t spoken a single word to his step-sister for over six months by the time that Max had to go on the run and didn't even realize that Max had gone missing until Steve, Jonathan, Nancy and Robin almost knocked his door down demanding that he tell them if he'd seen his sister. Robin had looked particularly menacing that night with a heavy thunderstorm raging behind her and Steve's spiked bat poised ready to be brought down on top of Billy's head, a blow that could have easily fractured his skull had Robin actually hit him. Billy hadn't been able to give the protective adoptive parents any information about their missing kid so Robin had used the bat to make a nice dent in Billy's Camaro to express how furious she was with him. Billy had been so terrified of Robin after that that the damage to his car was repaired quickly and quietly without repercussions

Steve blushed at the insinuation that he had a crush on Billy but, in his own defense Billy was hot, there was no way of avoiding that simple fact. Had Billy not been a dick to his kids, Steve might have felt a bit more comfortable about having a crush on the hot boy. “Shit” he mumbled, wondering which of his Little Shits had overheard him talking to himself about Billy.  
“Good mornin'.” Joyce had stepped into the room much to Steve's relief, it had indicated the end of Dustin and Robin's upcoming incessant questioning over why Steve was attracted to the biggest asshole in Hawkins  
“Morning, Mrs. Byers” Joyce had originally intended to move out of Hawkins but after Hopper was found alive and Jane and Max had gotten together, she decided to give the town one last chance and had remained in town even after the disappearance of Hopper, Jane, Max and Mike. To uproot her entire family and tear the Party apart even more after the disappearances would be the height of selfishness. The remaining Party members, Dustin, Lucas and Will, along with but to a lesser extent, Nancy, Jonathan and Steve, not to mention Holly and Erica needed the support of the remaining party members. Dustin had Suzie’s support but there wasn’t much she could do from so far away. Lucas was still heartbroken by Max’s realization that she loved Jane despite all the support he was getting from the Party. Will was heartbroken by Mike’s disappearance so after some deliberation, Joyce had decided to remain in Hawkins.  
“How are you guys doing?”  
“A lot better since we now know that Mike's okay” Dustin replied, they had gone back to bed once Mike had left. “Unfortunately we weren't able to settle any of Mike’s fears about El. She's still missing, I can't believe Brenner caught her. I _don't want_ to believe it” the rest of the Party that had remained in Hawkins had had no idea that Brenner had taken Jane back but they had a certain amount of satisfaction from Mike's words that he and Kali's gang were narrowing in on the psychotic son of a bitch and, once they did so, they would be able to get answers once and for all, by any means necessary and hopefully be able to kill the sadistic fuck as well. They hoped and prayed that Brenner's answers would include the location of Jane Hopper, Eleven to those in the lab.  
“God I hope she's okay” Lucas sighed, rubbing sleep from his eyes. “And Max too, it must be driving her crazy knowing that El is with that sick fuck”  
The assembled members of the party couldn’t bring themselves to do more than just nod at Lucas’ comment, they knew it was the truth and that Max was likely to take the loss of Jane the hardest of them all since she had been abused from a relatively young age by Neil who had come into her life when she was about nine or ten and she had lost not only her only friends during the hardest period of her life, she had lost her girlfriend. The remaining members of the Party had thought that at least they were all together. Joyce, Steve, Nancy, Robin and Jonathan had been concerned that nobody would be able to sleep having found out that the Party fragment that had been torn away had been shattered into even smaller fragments by circumstance. “Holy shit” Will sighed, he, like the others had fallen asleep rapidly due to exhaustion once Mike had left at seven in the morning. He had remained asleep for a mere few hours and had only just woken up, having been disturbed by Lucas and Dustin

** Tuesday 24th May 1988 **

“Clear” the gruff voice only carried a short distance across the otherwise abandoned area  
“Right, let's go” A feminine voice agreed with the male one and a blonde Max scurried across the parking lot of some mall just beyond the border of Indiana where Hopper had stopped to ditch not only their old car but all their old clothes as well. They had broken into the mall through one of the windows to use the bathrooms and steal some clothes, they were so close to achieving their goal that neither cared about doing whatever it took to do so. Hopper had used the supplies in one of their bags to crack open the lock on one of the roller shutters which they had opened and subsequently shattered the window to gain access to the mall. They had clambered through then closed up the shutter so they wouldn't be discovered so easily. Hopper had carried Jane into one of the clothing stores where Max had gone about changing her girlfriend’s clothes then her own. Hopper had disabled the security camera in the main area of the store as soon as they had arrived not only so they wouldn't get spotted by security but also so he could get changed in privacy. Burying their old clothes deep in a dumpster had been the best that Hopper could come up within the short time they had, fortunately, Max had had a better idea and they left the parking lot in their new set of wheels, a crappy old station wagon that Hopper had hotwired in order to steal. While Hopper had been hot-wiring their transport, Max had been burning their old car along with their clothes. “Are we safe?” Max squeaked, terrified that they would be spotted at the last possible moment, pulled over and subsequently arrested for kidnapping Jane back from those who had kidnapped her in the first place  
“I think so. We’ll take it in turns to drive for awhile, sleep when we're not the one driving. We have a long way to drive.” They did have a long way to drive, they had to cross three states before they even managed to get to the border with Canada and since they were in a hurry to get to Canada, they opted not to stop for anything save bathroom breaks. They then had to cross Canada and part of Alaska to get home, it would take them days to get back to their house in a town on the farthest edge of Alaska.  
“Are you okay to drive, dad?”  
“Yea. I'll be fine, Max. Go to sleep” Max promptly curled up with her head resting on her seat belt and allowed what remained of her adrenaline to run dry in order to fall asleep

Max woke up a few hours later and yawned loudly. “Hey” she spoke quietly to Hopper, lifting her head to gaze out the window at the somewhat uninteresting surroundings. They were somewhere in Illinois and were between towns, Hopper had evidently abandoned any hope of recovering their truck in favor of just getting the hell out of the country. Max didn't know how far into their journey they were but from the sound of it her girlfriend was fast asleep behind her. “Dad... Are we gonna make it?” Max wasn't usually so cautious but, they had finally rescued Jane from her version of hell and that, at least in Max's eyes, warranted a bit more caution than she usually showed.  
“I don't know yet” Hopper replied, his eyes darting down to the gun he kept strapped to the side of the driver’s seat, more clips were in the glove compartment and Max too had a gun within easy reach. A machine gun sat in a bag on the floor in front of the back seats, it was a little harder to get to but still within reach. “We have a long way to go, I decided not to get our car from where we left it” they hadn’t taken their own car into Indiana, had left it in a town a few miles from the state line and had taken out a hire car to complete their final part of the journey. Having been forced to abandon the hire car, they knew that they weren't going to get their deposit back and if they were honest they didn't give a damn. It had taken some work but Hopper had been able to persuade the woman to take cash for the car, knowing full well that they were unlikely to ever see any of that money again but it still irritated Hopper that he has been forced to kiss goodbye to some of his emergency funds, that they had to resort to stealing to make it to safety only increased the sense of defeat that had been overshadowing their victory since they had seen the police bulletin. Both were wondering just how long it would be before they were recognized by somebody. Joyce and the party would probably have the sense not to tell anyone that the man and woman on the police bulletin were Jim Hopper and Max Mayfield, but people like Karen or Ted Wheeler couldn't be trusted to know not to kick up a fuss. “Fuck, this was supposed to be the easy part”  
“Don't worry, dad. Once we’re across the border we can rest. We have a three-day road trip ahead of us but only a day or so of that is in this country”  
“Yep... If I'm honest I never saw myself having to _run for the border_ ” Hopper admitted quietly, hardly audible over the sounds of the engine. He was a police chief after all, so the fact that he had committed enough crimes to warrant fleeing the country upset him greatly. The fact that his daughter would otherwise have been left in some institution was only so much of a comfort. He knew he had no choice but that didn't make it any less jarring. “Do you want to get in the back for awhile?”  
“Yes, please, dad”

Hopper pulled up as soon as he could, they were avoiding the interstates and sticking to the smaller roads in an attempt to avoid being caught so he was able to just stop by the side of the road so that Max could jump out and run around to the back of the car. She clambered back in as quickly as she could and called 'go!’ as soon as she was in her seat. Hopper started driving before Max even managed to get her seat belt on. Once the redhead had secured herself in the car, she pulled her girlfriend closer and allowed her head to rest on her shoulder. Max was aching inside, she didn't know just how long Jane had been catatonic, nor how long Jane had been at the mercy of the men who had ruined her childhood. She suspected that Brenner had somehow broken her mind the way he had broken Jane's mother’s mind but prayed that it wasn’t. If it was physical damage such as they caused by shock 'therapy’, there was no way to help her get better

** Thursday 1st February 1990 **

“They're trying to find _her_...? Six, are you sure?” a thin blonde young woman narrowed her eyes at the auburn-haired woman. The blonde was a few years older than the Party, more or less Steve’s age  
“Uh-huh,” the older woman nodded sagely. “Naturally, it doesn't go the way they want it to” the auburn-haired women confirmed with a sigh  
The woman scoffed. “I imagine not, I imagine it ends with blood coating yet another motel room floor?”  
“That's happened before?” the auburn-haired woman, Six asked, she had seen any number of possible futures in which most of the time, the blonde girl and the big man ended up suffering various deaths  
“It sure has. Most stressful few hours of my life.”  
“They don't make it in any number of possible futures. In fact, I think there's only one future in which they actually make it out alive” For Francine, picking out what was going to happen in each possible future was only part of the struggle, she then had to relay it in a somewhat comprehensible way  
“And let me guess, it somehow involves me?” the blonde replied with a tired sigh, the blonde thought she was done with people wanting to find her as a result of that dark proud of her life that covered her entire childhood  
“Uh-huh. You need to make the introduction, otherwise, she'll slaughter them on sight”  
“Of course she would.” The blonde rolled her eyes, exasperated. She couldn't really blame the women for reacting that way after all. “I'll think about it, okay?”  
“Of course, I understand. Just remember that without your help, Thirteen, Eleven will remain catatonic for the rest of her life, trapped in that dream cycle. There's only one telepathic in the world, at least as far as I know”  
“Uh-huh. Okay”  
“One last thing. Didn’t Eight vow to kill them all, including her?” Six asked quietly  
“Oh, I hope, for Kali's sake, that she never finds that particular woman. Kali wouldn't last five seconds” the blonde experiment named Thirteen knew just how driven Kali was, but when she compared luck and drive to the other woman's finely-tuned abilities and terrifying and vicious style of self-defense that she had seen in action, she knew that Kali didn't stand a chance


End file.
